Dull skies have finally broken
Humidity lifts
and there is air under there--
The last of day
the barest blues
the singe of pink
held up by lumps of charcoal cloud
drifting in scent of backyard fires
The moon curses from its crook of smile

Then hides again
behind the city rooftops and blackened trees
among the aerial cheers of a football game

two miles away

I am drenched
                  in you
            as you wash
  through my pores
I am quenched
in tsunami
as it pushes down
my door
I am splayed
to all four corners
exposed to your eye
My veins are frayed
from suffered hautings,
'Til you
rock my tender tide
My torso is taut
to meet liquid lips
all these *****,  
silky thoughts
controlling my hips
We share a
          rushing river language
speaking deftly in tongues
You penetrate my soul
as I breathe air into
your lungs
So take me on an
underwater journey
down the crash
of your shore
I want to drown
in this ocean
and come to life
with a roar

In the work cart I find a luna moth
And is it dead?  With gentle hands I lift…
And off it flies! into the sunlit leaves
Breeze-wavy in the pale September sun

          Among the apple and cherry and oak

I labor away at summer’s excess
And clear the paths and glades of weatherfall
Sorting out litter to a merry fire
And billets to store for the winter hearth

          Sweet gifts of apple and cherry and oak

The bees seem to wonder what I’m about
Sitting awhile, and thinking the summer out

          Beneath the apple and cherry and oak